As a child in Sunday School, and in the many books of bible stories my parents made available to us as children, the story of the tower of Babel went along these lines:

The people of the city of Babel wanted to be closer to god so they thought they would build a big tower to reach the heavens and be a bit godlier.Bible god was offended by their pride in thinking they could reach him with a tower, he smote them by confounding their languages, and instead of speaking just one language as before, they now all spoke the various languages we now see around the world.

Genesis Chapter 11

1

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

So far – so good.

3

And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.

4

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

So, they did.

5

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

6

And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

So, god swings by to see what they “builded” and he goes “damn! These people are organized, they all speak the same language, they are motivated and if they are building a tower to heaven at this stage in human history, nothing will stop them from doing anything they imagine, and we surely cant have that shit going on!”

7

Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

So, god in his omni-humorous way, decides to round up his god-posse, his alter-egos, Gemini twin, or whoever the hell “us” is and go down to earth and make everyone speak different languages so nobody understands each other.There is no mention of punishment for any sin or wrongdoing.The word of god clearly states that they were too ambitious for his comfort “and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do” and god cant have an entire city of self-thinking, self-motivated, creative people going around figuring out truths of life through experimentation and discovery.Oh no, that would allow humanity to evolve without him and what would that leave for him to do? Who then would he smite and show great signs to in order to instill the fear of him in?Who would he play his tricks on and trip up so their personal progress is divinely hampered and kept within the parameters of ignorance that he is comfortable with?

Faced with such logic, god absolutely has no choice but to play his games and screw with the language to get his heavenly jollies and ensure his continued relevance.

8

So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

9

Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

The important thing to take away here is in the last verse.These days scientists are actively engaged in determining where various groups of people migrated from and where they ended up. DNA science is shedding an ongoing light as they uncover more and more bone and fossil evidence. But since the bible is the literal word of god, we all know that nobody came across the Bering land bridge or made ancient boats, they were just magically scattered from Babel across the entire earth - which makes a lot more sense if you have a couple of bottles of sacramental wine under your belt.